Two Held In Fatal Shooting

Two Hartford teenagers suspected of taking part in the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old Weaver High School student were charged with murder after they turned themselves in to police Saturday night.

Anthony ``Little Ant'' Allen, 17, and Kevin ``Maduke'' Amos, 19, both of 32 Vine St., appeared at police headquarters about 6 p.m. Saturday after detectives spent much of the day negotiating with one of the suspect's relatives to get the teens to surrender, police said. They were being held overnight Saturday, with bail set at $1 million each.

Police did not discuss details of what allegedly motivated Allen and Amos to open fire on a group of teenagers who were walking home from a Weaver High School basketball game Tuesday night on Branford Street in the city's Blue Hills neighborhood. One of the teens in the group, Lorenzo Morgan Rowe, a Weaver honors student, was shot in the head and struggled to stay alive for two days at the hospital before his father made the difficult decision to take him off life support systems.

He was one of two teens killed in the city last week. The other was Reynaldo Batista, 14, who was stabbed Thursday at a McDonald's on Washington Street while trying to protect his mother from being attacked by two women, police said. Reynaldo died later that day.

Witnesses said Lorenzo's assailants may have intended to shoot somebody else in the group as part of an ongoing argument over a girl. Police and school officials have described Lorenzo as a well-respected, hard-working student with no history of crime-related troubles. Witnesses told police that Lorenzo was shot by gunmen in a passing car who wore dark clothing.

On Saturday, before Allen and Amos turned themselves in, a man identifying himself as Allen answered the door at the Vine Street apartment listed by police as the suspects' home address. The man, who resembled the photograph of Allen distributed by police, denied that he or Amos were involved in the killing.

``People been spreading false information,'' he said. ``The police had the wrong names. We didn't have anything to do with that.''

After the shooting, the man said, rumors began spreading in the community that Allen and Amos were responsible, which is why police had unfairly targeted them. By that time Saturday afternoon, he said, police had not yet been to his apartment to look for him or Amos.

When told detectives had just publicly announced they had arrest warrants for Allen and Amos, and that a TV crew was filming outside the apartment building, the man again insisted that police were seeking the wrong people.

``I don't even know that kid. I never seen that kid in my life before,'' he said of Lorenzo.

About a half-hour after talking with a reporter, the man was gone when detectives with a fugitive task force from Hartford and state police showed up at the apartment. A little more than an hour later, the suspects had turned themselves in at police headquarters.

Police said Allen and Amos were to appear in Superior Court in Hartford Monday morning.